******************************* CORRECTION: An article in the Feb. 3 edition and a Feb. 5 editorial incorrectly stated that three at-large N.C. Board of Transportation members had allotments of economic development money and that they spent it on projects near their hometowns. *******************************

The primary job of the state Board of Transportation should be to help improve North Carolina's quality of life and spur its economic progress by setting smart policies for the state's transportation investments. Yet too many of the state's top politicians have also looked to the board's members to spur something else: campaign fundraising.

That's even been the case in the decade since the General Assembly recognized the blatant use of board seats for political patronage and tried to reform the system. A cursory look around the election-year landscape is enough to make ordinary North Carolinians pull over in disgust.

Last month, for example, Thomas Betts Jr., a Board of Transportation member from Rocky Mount, resigned after The N&O reported that he had tried to raise $20,000 in campaign money for Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue. Targeted in the solicitation were people connected to a struggling music theater in Roanake Rapids, including country singer Randy Parton, for whom the theater originally was named.

Perdue, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, has said she sought to keep her fundraising at arm's length from the theater and those associated with it, but Betts apparently didn't get the message.

The Betts situation came to light in an e-mail obtained by The N&O. But as Dan Kane and Benjamin Niolet reported on Sunday, a law intended to require disclosure of campaign fundraising by Board of Transportation members allows those members to raise truckloads of money for their patrons with no one the wiser.

The law was enacted in 1998. In his first year after taking office in 2001, Governor Easley asked the Attorney General's Office for an interpretation. The opinion from that office was that transportation board members need report only funds that they had "personally accepted from a donor" and passed on to a candidate.

It took no time, of course, for appointees to the board to navigate that loophole. A common maneuver is for board members to host fundraisers but not to touch the cash, in which case no disclosure is required. Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett can do the same, and he has. The effect is to render the law a sham.

Laudably, some board members do list those from whom they have collected donations. They include Cameron W. McRae of Kinston, G.R. Kindley of Rockingham and Paul Waff Jr. of Edenton. Most members don't. Yet the stealth contributors from whom they have raised money could receive favorable treatment or big contracts from the officeholders whose campaigns they helped finance. The conflict of interest is considered none of your business, if you're an ordinary state taxpayer.

Sunday's N&O article also noted that two of the five seats (on the 19-member board) that are supposed to be reserved to provide professional input to the deliberations have been awarded in recent years to restaurateurs known for their fund-raising prowess. And some at-large members, picked to represent the entire state, have begun steering discretionary funds to their home districts. If money is the mother's milk of politics, it's the asphalt that often helps paves DOT's board membership, too.

It wouldn't take long for the legislature to repair the reform law, and lawmakers ought to make that a priority. Perdue, in fact, sponsored the 1998 legislation, which elbowed out a stricter version. She could demonstrate her commitment to clean, open government by leading a campaign this spring to pass smart, effective reform of the board and the department it directs.